Hi John!
My thought:
The lyric is about some powerful dictator who does everything his own way, and refuses to accept failure?
I think Rob’s original, might be less cluttered (as couch indicated), if the pronoun is changed from I to he. So then it becomes the singer telling a tale of the dictator’s authoring his own captivity.
In Dylan’s release lyric, the singer knows very clearly of being captive, and longs to be freed.
I thought of the Who song, Behind Blue Eyes, where the singer knows full well of his capture, and has an evil plan to free himself…..here the I pronoun works.
Your rewrite, has the singer confront the dictator directly….that works I think.
Bill
